Other games with baseball cards: 1) Trying to flip a card the farthest and winning the round. How to cheat: glue two cards together. 2) Set a card leaning against a wall and try to knock it down from across the area (often done in the lobby of an apartment building). Winner keeps everyone’s attempts. 3) Flipping across the lobby–closest to the opposite wall wins all the cards that were flipped that round. 4) A game I could never appreciate: Two players–one flips a card to the ground at his feet, noting whether it was heads (the picture of the ball player) or tails (the statistics). The opponent would have to match the toss–heads or tails–to win your card, or fail to match it and lose his.

This is a sidewalk game of skill called “Pack.” The currency for payoffs was in “tickets” (cards); these were usually movie star cards or WWII cards depicting airplanes, ships, or war scenes. The only piece of equipment was a pack of cards (these could be ordinary playing cards) tied up with rubber bands or tape. The “court” consisted of four sidewalk boxes in a row. At one end was the base or starting line. Three boxes away (i.e. at the start of the fourth box) was the LINE. Assume that an order of play was agreed upon (more about this later). Then, in turn, one tossed his pack from the base line toward the LINE. Closest to (or on) the LINE determined the order of play for the rest of this round. If more than one was on the LINE, priority went to the later ones. To play, one picks up his pack and kneels, putting one knee where the pack was. With the other arm not on the ground for balance, one would toss (or place) his pack. One had to get his pack on the LINE to convert his pack into a KING; for only a KING could “capture” another pack. To capture another pack, your pack must lie on top of his (leaning but partially on top is OK). The captured player pays the capturing player one ticket and removes his pack from this round of the game. Getting on the LINE or capturing lets you immediately play again. The round ceases when all but one pack remains. Playing order for the beginning of the next round is the order in which players were captured in the previous round. Obviously it is good to be last (so that you can either go for the LINE or drop quite short of it to avoid being captured early. The last player to begin the round is called LARRY. How to start the game: Someone says “Let’s play pack.” Everyone immediately yells, “Larry.” Somehow (by oldest or bulliest player making an arbitrary decision) they agree on the order in which people yelled “Larry.” The first one who yelled “Larry” gets to go last; the second one, next to last, etc. Bad features: Parents did not approve of this for two reasons: (1) It promoted gambling, little kids invariably lost all their tickets to the big kids with their longer reach. (2) Very quickly, a hole would be worn in your right knee of your best corduroy pants. Good feature: It encouraged the purchasing of “tickets”: These usually came in a strip of eight which had to be cut apart. Much war history was learned by kids reading the backs of their tickets.